Jack Tar Adventures

Another day in Amsterdam.  It’s too windy for the locks, and now more thunderstorms are expected around noon.  We’ll see.  We have power, water, and a pump out here, so it’s not so bad, but there’s nothing to see in Amsterdam, and there’s no easy access to the town, even if there were.  We’re a little hesitant to leave the boat anyway.  Yesterday, just as we were leaving to walk to Ace’s Hardware, a group of prom-goers came down to the dock for some riverside pictures.  Lovely!  They asked if they could take pictures with the boat behind them, to which, of course, we said yes!  But as we were walking away, one of the picture-takers, presumably mom, told one of the couples to get on the boat!  We had stopped up at the patio to talk to the dockmaster, so we saw them get on. Peter called down to them that we couldn’t have them on the boat for insurance reasons, which is true.  But why would you get on someone’s boat without asking?!  Or when the owner is not on the boat?  Apparently, this is a phenomenon Peter has read about in other boaters’ accounts. For some reason, there are people who get onto boats that don’t belong to them for photo opportunities.  Strange, isn’t it?  You wouldn’t sit on someone’s car, or get on someone’s camper, or step onto someone’s lawn for a picture.  Peter and I decided it must be the novelty of a boat at a city dock, a public place where the lines between public space and private property are somehow blurred.  Go figure.

We chatted for a while with Dan, the dockmaster, who is trying to make a go of the revived city marina restaurant. It will be an uphill battle for him since there is a highway between the river and the closest parking. Most of his customers will be boat traffic like us, but there are no reviews in the boating guidebooks, and we couldn’t find any online reviews or even any indication of what kind of food was served. Not very savvy. He asked us to find a place to put up his flier, but where would we do that? At another marina?